Rosenrot
by gordafarid
Summary: AU; takes place three to eighteen years in the future. Gilbert Nightray unintentionally impregnates his brother's wife, Ada Vessalius. A cycle of agony is enacted that can only be ended in one last blood-sacrifice. A tragedy in three acts. Gilbert/Ada, Vincent/Ada, (in spirit though it's really a Vincent/Ada/Gilbert story). *Spoilers to Retrace 79.*
1. Tiefe Wasser sind nicht still

_Tiefe Wasser sind nicht still._

* * *

Only when it was over did he think of the consequences.

Only when she lifted her head to look at him with wide startled eyes that could have devoured him in their look of wonder. Only when her sweat-laden hair pulled from the damp pillow and exhaled a subtle musk. Only when she subconsciously lifted a hand to cover her heaving breast. Only when she sighed in regret.

"Oh, Gilbert."

Only after he had made her his own, for however many insidious seconds he had planted himself within her, and sown the seeds for the flowering of the event horizon. He could not see that distant plane but he could feel its terrible conception pulsing in his throbbing hands and aching loins. With a small cry he touched his forehead to hers and bit back bitter tears.

"Miss Ada I am so sorry-!" he gasped. The words felt brittle in his mouth and their apologetic intention faded on the very heated air. How could he pretend? He had _enjoyed _this. This comfort she had given him. This nonjudgmental intimacy comprised only of gentle warmth and boundless love. He had asked and she had opened. She had allowed him in so he may not freeze in the cold of despair and fear.

But this hearth belonged to his brother and this warmth was only his right.

"Vincent…" Ada voiced the blade hanging between them, double edged, a face for them both. She closed her eyes. "I must tell him."

"I-!" Gilbert looked away as he felt his gut tightening. How had it come to this? How had a deluge of tears become a sweat soaked embrace upon someone else's bed? He hadn't even been drunk! Such selfishness to take Miss Ada's pure love and turn it into adultery. He had been trying to comfort her as well, a young bride, frightened and alone without her husband.

Vincent had moved her from safe house to safe house and only a few days before had Oz come across news of his sister in the wake of the collapse of Pandora. Gilbert had only been asked to check in on her, to lead no one to her, to look at her face and see the life still there so Oz could know not all was lost. He had only been asked to look at her, not lay her beneath him like a shameless whore.

He had betrayed his master and his younger brother in one action, how could he have ever thought someone so lowly deserved to be in the light?

"Vincent will understand." Ada said softly as she slowly moved away from her unintentional lover, covering herself in a bed sheet. "He loves you more than he does me I think!"

She gave a small breathless laugh. "He knows, he'll understand!"

"Miss Ada," Gilbert laid a hand over her even as he turned away to hide his own shameful nudity. "Don't do anything to compromise yourself."

Ada looked up with a blink, but slowly smiled. She had been a cloistered young woman but she had still been born a noble. From the day her mother died she knew the sort of vicious games her class played and her marriage to a Baskerville was perhaps the only thing that had saved her head. Gilbert could only think it must have been true love on Vincent's part to have such a wife and in solitary moments he had even thanked his younger brother for the sacrifice. Even if her marriage had been conceived in love however, it was Ada's shield and she must not lose her protection. She moved her hand away however with a small look of chastisement.

"If Vincent wants to throw me out over this, I will allow it." She raised her head as Gilbert stiffened in terror. "I don't want anything but true love, Gilbert. If Vincent can't forgive me…so be it."

"Miss Ada!" Gilbert groaned at her stubbornness, so like her brother! She even giggled like him when scolded!

"Ah…I told him that you know, when he married me. 'I'm only marrying you because I love you'." Ada grinned in true delight at the memory. "And he said the same thing."

Gilbert only groaned again but Ada reached for the hands covering his face. She gently raised his head up in her palms, holding him as lovingly as a mother with a stubborn child.

"However, I don't feel like this was a mistake. He loves you more than anyone else, Gilbert. What would he thought of me if I had sent you away with such heaviness in your heart? I would never cuckold my husband; it was only because I felt like…he would have hated me more if I had let you go without giving you that release." Ada dropped her forehead onto his and submerged him in an embrace. "He will forgive us."

After he had dried his tears Gilbert dressed, feeling as if a heavy burden had been taken from his shoulders though he did still fear his brother's reaction despite Ada's limitless optimism. Though he may never know what Vincent would think of the encounter, given he had almost given up hope of seeing his younger brother ever again in the great rushing tide of a world being swept away. He could only hope the only woman he had ever loved would not be drowned like so many others he had known.

He left her with a kiss to the cheek and a final unobtainable hope from Ada, "I hope that one day all of us, me, you, Vincent, my brother, and Miss Alice….that we can all be together again!"

Gilbert nodded for he had the same dream, even if it lived it a castle in the sky, composed of nothing more than smoke and dust.

* * *

But in time, Gilbert did learn of his brother's thoughts on the matters of adultery and cuckoldry. The clandestine message arrived as they had in yesterdays, with black roses. He didn't know if it had been Vincent or another Baskerville that had left the bouquet upon his bed. It was _someone_at least that had no inkling of that stupid rabbit's appetite as he irritably held the cluster of blooms over her gaping and snapping jaws. His annoyance couldn't hide his pale face however when he spied Vincent's scrawl upon the faded paper.

_I have news. Meet me in the old Nightray mansion. Come alone and not be harmed._

The months hadn't faded Gilbert's memory of the night with Ada, he remembered every nuance of her straining body and it brought a vibrant blush to his cheek. So much so that Oz perked up at his red face.

"Oh are the roses from a _lady-friend_?" The blond sing-songed as Gilbert tossed the roses against the wall, letting Alice tear them to shreds like the little animal she was.

"No," he sighed. "My brother."

"Oh." Oz blinked and shifted as uncomfortably as he always did whenever Vincent was mentioned. "Is it about Ada?"

"N-no, I don't think so…hope so…" Gilbert let him read the note. Oz only frowned for a few seconds before handing it back.

"You better go," Was all Oz said. He set the note down and gave only one more order.

"Though if he did anything to Ada, you have my permission to kill him."

Gilbert never knew if Oz was joking or not when he said such things but he felt like his sentiments were about the same so it never disturbed him.

* * *

Gilbert was aware the old mansion had been overtaken by the Baskervilles in these past few years since the family's demise. He still felt the eerie thrill of his hair standing on his neck as he climbed the double staircase that gave the sensation of floating towards the entrance, as if walking in a nightmare. The darkness swallowed the steps below and nothing lead the way save for a distant and vague light at the end of the main hall. It hovered like a beacon in the great maw of the still and dilapidated home, where nothing echoed but the memories of a living family full of their own intricacies and suspended destinies. No ghosts prowled along the dust and cobwebs however; in death the home was as empty as it had been as full in life.

He found a painting of Elliot in his youth had been removed from the front parlor, but thought nothing of the choices of the reigning Baskerville duke.

Vincent held the candle delicately between his hands, as if at a vigil. In this back tearoom, many years ago, the duchess had been serenaded for her birthday. It was with no memory of that woman however that Vincent looked up and gave a small chortle. He seemed no different, as if he had not aged at all within the last three years. Perhaps he hadn't. Gilbert instinctively felt the stump where his left arm had been and recalled how this man had cried for him. Yet it was Gilbert who felt like decades had passed since that fateful night.

"You don't look good at all Big Brother," Vincent informed him and Gilbert knew it was the truth. He perched across from the younger man upon a dust soaked divan and chased away a mincing spider from atop the armrest. Vincent sat back, drinking in the full countenance of the person he loved more than even his wife who had only love to give. Gilbert had given him only bitterness and suffering. Why, even now, would he not raise a hand to him?

"Vince, I…" his words were swallowed by the darkness and distance between them. Vincent inclined his head as if reaching down to devour what was being offered him upon a platter; his brother's grief.

"You have been worried about something, haven't you?" he didn't look up even as his smile became broader.

"What is there to _not_ worry about?" Gilbert sharply demanded. When Vincent didn't answer he continued on. "Vince, _please_, it doesn't have to be like this! Come home! Come with me and Oz! Miss Ada too! We can all live together and we'll all protect each other! We'll …"

"She is pregnant." Vincent dissolved all of Gilbert's hopes with one terrible truth. He at last raised his head and only sardonically smiled at his brother's look of horror. "It's yours, not mine."

"N-no! It can't! I mean! It must have been…you too must have…" Gilbert groped desperately for a denial.

"When I married Ada we had only one other rule besides that we must love one another," his bitter smile grew wider. "That we would have no children. There are ways to avoid such a thing you know and I did take every precaution so…."

He sat back and only looked at Gilbert in bemusement. "It's yours. My wife carries your child."

"No! Impossible! Impossible!" Gilbert gasped feeling the world falling around him in gruesome spikes of pain and regret. He sat forward and shut his eyes against furious tears. _I can't be-! No! Not with Oz! Not Miss Ada!_

"You're lying!" He threw the accusation into Vincent's face like a slap. The other man stiffened and reared back in disbelief but it only took his practiced smile away for a few seconds. How much Gilbert hated to see that look on Vincent's face, it was the same one he used to give to old countesses and bumbling earls. It was a look of deceptive congeniality. He must surely feel _something_in this terrible moment!

"If you think so….come and look at it when it's born." Vincent primly offered. He rose from the armchair with a trail of spiders' webs and horror following him. Gilbert only sullenly sat back at the offer, his stomach far too painful to further move. Vincent only looked out at the dead rose garden and perhaps with the nostalgia of the prodigal son.

"You know, when I first met that girl…I only thought of breaking her heart," Vincent confessed lowly, as coldly as the ice forming intricate patterns on the glass outside. He chuckled darkly, "If I had only known…you would be the one to break her heart."

Gilbert had nothing to say to him and Vincent only shrugged at his mollification.

"If it offends you, I'll kill it." He said softly. Gilbert gave a small noise of disbelief but Vincent looked at him with deadly seriousness. "I would have killed it if it was mine. This sort of world…no child should be born into it."

"Vincent." Gilbert knew he was not lying. Vincent hand was clenched against the glass as he stared down the line of withered plants each one throwing a grotesque shadow back into the abandoned home. He loomed larger than life on the threshold of death and tragedy.

"But it is yours, so…you can decide what to do with it." Vincent dropped his hand and straightened his back, not looking towards his brother as he decided the fate of his own child.

"Does Miss Ada want it…?" Was all Gilbert could ask. Let the decision ultimately be someone else's.

"As far as I can tell, yes. She was apprehensive but not unhappy when she told me." Vincent said blithely.

"Then….let her keep it." It would be her child then, not his, whatever Vincent thought. He looked away when his younger brother turned back to look at him, his other denied responsibility.

"…Very well." He conceded as he stepped away from the window. He didn't look up even as Vincent stood before him, and he only cringed as his younger brother leaned down and kissed his forehead. He chuckled to feel Gilbert's stiff muscles beneath him; his fingers lingered on his brother's slender clavicle, exposed by years of wear.

"Be well, Gil." Was all he said as he departed but Gilbert grasped for his younger brother's soul one last time.

"Vince, when you said- 'This sort of world, no child should be born into it', what did you mean?" Gilbert asked lowly but with an unwavering determination. Vincent's hand lingered on the doorknob.

"What I said," Vincent answered readily with a simpering smile he reserved for Gilbert alone, though the other man feared to see what exactly lay beneath it. Gilbert's fingernails bit into the worn fabric of the divan.

"Would you kill that too if it offended me?" Gilbert snapped with his eyes locked on Vincent's mismatched ones. In that darkness the red of his cursed eyes was lost but Gilbert knew it was there, always there!

"Of course," Vincent beamed like the child who used to peer around these very same doorways. Gilbert rose from his chair.

"You know-! You know if you try to change the world, like Glen Baskerville did, I will have to kill _you_!" It was a threat, a plea, a truth, all merged into one cry of agony. "If you try to take Oz out of existence!"

"I know," Vincent smiled one last time before descending into the darkness.

"Vincent! Vincent!" Gilbert bellowed his brother's name into the night but the house only shook with his own frustrated cries and the flickering threads of memory that laced across the rotted floors and decaying ceilings. No thread was tied to his brother's wrist, no sound followed him, and he was lost in the massive void that surrounded Gilbert in the house of the dead.

Gilbert was left in darkness and unable to follow because he now knew the light. Once he would have been able to follow his brother in the great cavern of the soul where no light ever penetrated. Now however with his head raised he could no longer looked down, could no longer see where his brother descended.

And that was the void between them; insurmountable.

* * *

When the child was born, Gilbert ignored the message. Oz received one as well, but the danger was too great at the time to expose themselves. Some months later an opportunity arose and Oz went to see his nephew, much bigger than an infant and looking very much like his uncle. Even when Oz compared the shade of the boy's hair to Gilbert's and teased his nephew had nicer hair because it was straight; Gilbert refused to see the boy. He was Ada's, he would always be hers.

Even with two red eyes of misfortune.

He didn't see the boy for many years, not until a decade and a little bit more had passed. Not until young Rotem Vessalius, who could only claim his mother's name because of his father's infamy, both the legitimate and illegitimate one, was on the threshold of adolescence. At a time when he was no longer a young child, but when he would most need a father to guide him and teach him how to be a man.

When he was old enough to be able to recognize his father's murderer.

_I warned him! I warned him and warned him!_Gilbert cursed the very charred earth. There was nothing left but the smoldering skeletons of buildings and the flickering embers of a wasted hope. The Chain had gone to rest within the Abyss, leaving the contractor exposed and vulnerable. And willing to pay for his sin.

_Ah, but not yet._He raised his head to look at the line of red cloaks lining along the fire line. They had scattered at the blue flames that were the searing power of the Abyss, the only thing capable of devouring immortal bodies. They had been helpless and only silent witnesses to the immolation of their own, the jury of the trial of Gilbert Nightray, Baskerville traitor and brother-killer.

The judge descended from on high, delicate footfall tracing the scorched ground even as he walked as someone who should never touch the impure Earth. The master betrayed, reborn, and resplendent. What approached Gilbert was not the Guardian however, only a man, and one who was also already far too old.

"Let him go." Was the only order of Glen Baskerville, who like all those before him knew the love of a servant. Gilbert didn't ask why he was being pardoned for his blood-crime, for he knew in the darkest place, it must be because Vincent had asked for it. That all along, his brother had known he would die by his hand.

No one questions a god and the devotees left without a word. There was no absolution for a crime without the punishment. Gilbert however received his minutes later after he had fallen again to his knees in torment.

"Vincent is…" Ada's soft voice clashed across the chasm. Gilbert looked up to see her standing in a dark cloak, another figure behind her, his face lost in his hood, but his gasping breath loud and pained.

"Dead. I killed him." Let her have no doubt. Ada went as stiff as a frozen over corpse, her skin the same ghastly shade; until life came over her again as she realized she now stood where he had fallen. It was then she fell to the earth her husband had been seared into, cutting an even deeper psychic scar onto the land. Her cries were muted, but her grief was overwhelming. Gilbert wondered at Vincent's last cruelty, was this how he had meant for him to meet his son at last? Is this why he had brought them to Sablier with him?

As if looking for an answer he looked up at last into the young man's face. He had removed his hood, showing an expression Vincent had never allowed Gilbert to see; one of unrelenting hatred. The boy was tall, lean, with the same sort of awkward face Gilbert had had at the same age, the hard chin of a man with a boy's pudgy cheeks. His long dark hair gave his eyes the color of a deep wine red, nothing like the bright blood of his father's….uncle's…._father's_.

For Gilbert knew right then this boy would never be his, and never had been.

"I won't forget this." Was all Rotem said to him as he walked past to rejoin his master on the distant horizon. To find him whole and out of danger and to look upon Gilbert for all he really was.

He said nothing to the grieving widow and the seething son besides her.

_"If I had only known…you would be the one to break her heart."_

Vincent had always known more than him.


	2. Tiefe Brunnen muß man graben

_Tiefe Brunnen muß man graben, wenn man klares Wasser will._

_Deep wells must be dug if you want clear water. _

* * *

Despite the tragedy of her life, Ada Vessalius could not say she regretted any of it.

The day of her mother's death she had become aware of the preciousness of life. She had spent most of her childhood cloistered and protected, yet even the efforts of her loving uncle and strict father had not shielded her from life's incipient perniciousness. Her brother had been lost, regained, and lost again as the horrid truth of life had been unfurled in all its vicious brightness for a trail of death had haunted her family in the form of Jack Vessalius' ghost.

It was he who had blighted their lives and had even salted their lines of inheritance. It was only because she was a woman she had been spared from that curse, and only because she had never become a mother in his wake her son, the new Vessalius heir, had survived his wrath. Rotem however lived an existence as perilous as her own in this net of cruelty and ambition. For years she had lived an anonymous life in the countryside when her husband had forsaken her on some masochistic impulse she felt she could never comprehend. She only knew she had never been enough for him and though she had tried to understand him he had still slipped away from her loving embrace into the gaping jaws of darkness.

The years afterwards had been quiet and full of gentle hope. Rotem had grown into a well behaved young man who liked to flirt with the young milk maids but had never made a young woman cry, much to his mother's pride. He did well by his tutors and was intelligent enough to hold in-depth political conversations with her at meals regarding the nature of freedom and the state of the country. Living for so long in a bubble of ignorance Ada could say the experience had not done her anymore good than having to learn by inches what true strength was. Her son would not be so unprepared for this new world. If only he didn't have that same sort of stubborn pride his father did (both) his mother could feel much more secure about his future.

Ada didn't regret anything she had done, for she had learned long ago to accept fate and rejoice that you were allowed to live at all.

Yet she didn't leave her son's destiny up to chance. As she had been protected all her life, so she guarded her last legacy of her husband, for while Rotem may have not been Vincent's biological son, he had raised the boy as his own. Or so Ada had felt for Vincent had never been able to remain long by her side, but he had been kind at least to her son and Rotem had mourned for him at his passing.

And Rotem refused to be anyone else's son.

So it was for the son of Vincent Baskerville she pleaded the day she returned to the capital after more than eighteen years had passed, since she had married the infamous traitor. The king of course still nominally ruled the country but surely every citizen could feel that subtle shift in power that radiated over Sablier. Perhaps their eyes lingered for longer on the shadows in a doorway or looked twice at a passing stranger in a cloak, the country seemed to pulse on an indiscernible beat of power whose wellhead was the very Abyss. Ada could feel in her incantations and spells the shift in magic, towards something more balanced, golden, yet dangerously frayed at the edges, nearly ripping at the seams.

For how long would this strained peace last and the displaced nobles accept their lesser share? Only by force did Baskerville rule. Before the power had intricately been bound between four families and though that ties had been strained they had become stable. They had restrained any further conflict with knots of marriage, diplomacy, and fear. Now however with Baskerville as tyrant there was no need for compromise, no need for diplomacy. There had been rumors for years of armies growing in the countryside, ready to one day storm the old capital. Ready to make their voices heard.

Ada grasped the message that had called her to Reveille tightly in her hand, so what did the son of a traitor matter in this game?

She left her carriage at the entrance of the palace, but she was not seeing any of the royal family. She gave her name to the guardsman and was lead off to the west wing of the castle far away from the court and its pleasantries. She was lead down floors to nearly the very core of the building, deep within the earth. She tensed at the sight of those red cloaks she had not seen since her husband had been executed nearly three years before, but she was only escorted into an ornate sitting room by the two guards.

She raised her head, not quite meeting the eyes of the lounging duke but keeping her face up as a noble lady. She sat across from him before a wide oak table. As she looked down at the grains she had only one thought; _if I had known at Latowidge what you would become I would have- scolded you more!_

"Moscato?" The sudden question startled her. She looked up and at last took in the full countenance of the grown Leo, no, only Glen Baskerville. He was seated in an arm chair, sideways, with his cheek in his hand.

_I really should have scolded you more._Ada thought primly as she looked at his shaggy hair that just brushed his black eyes and high cheeks. She slowly realized he really was exactly the same as before; he had not aged at all in the past sixteen years. She had heard this happened to some contractors, but even to Glen?

"Lady Vessalius?" He raised an eyebrow at her and Ada sat up to attention.

"Oh, no, no," she vehemently shook her head and to her chagrin he laughed at her.

"Still a space cadet!" He teased and Ada stiffened, unsure if it was good or bad he apparently remembered her so well.

"Y-you shouldn't be insulting people you know!" Ada snapped and recoiled as she realized she had just rebuked the Baskerville duke, no matter if he still very much behaved like his teenage self. She swallowed at his look of surprise and tried to save herself. "I mean…I'm your guest…aren't I?"

"Ah, yes." He agreed, apparently not offended. He appeared to take her about as seriously now as he ever had. He seemed more amused by her faux-pas than offended, as he always had anyone who tried to correct his behavior. It was really, _irritating_.

"Because I have something quite important to talk to you about, Lady Ada and one I really should have before." Glen hooked his ankles as he stretched his back. Ada bit her tongue to prevent herself from ordering him to get his feet off such nice furniture!

"Your son." Ada's thoughts were quickly directed away from thoughts of ruined silk.

"Rotem?" she asked in breathless surprise.

"Is that his name? Yes. That Misfortune Child." Glen said crisply.

"Misfortune Child? Isn't that what people used to call Vincent?" Ada asked.

"Yes, because he _was_ one. From the day he was born, like his _son_." Ada cringed at the emphasis on the relation as Glen leaned forward. "As he is publically known. But I know otherwise Lady Ada. Misfortune Children don't have red-eyed children…but heirs of Glen _do_at times."

Ada stiffened but held her ground. She leaned forward to meet the duke's challenge. "I really don't imagine you care about such petty matters, my lord duke. What does it matter how my son came to be?"

"Because, until now, such people were banished to the Abyss." Glen sat up at last as Ada felt her heart fall out of her chest.

"What?"

"Because they are a danger to the very universe. When a Glen leaves one in his wake he must clean up his mistake. They can warp the world, unhinge it, change it. They cannot be allowed to exist."

"But _you_are Glen! Rotem is Gilbert's son! Not yours!" Ada cried out. Damn her good name! Let this man sneer at her! But they both knew the boy was not his!

"Gilbert was once a potential vessel for my soul. He still holds that power. He created the Misfortune Child Vincent, and he did again with his son. This is why people like us should not exist amongst mortals." Glen sighed and sat back. He rolled his eyes in disgust at a thought most would keep silent but he readily voiced.

"Really why in the hell did he do something like that _anyway_? If there was one man I never think go out for a tumble-"

"None of your business!" Ada snapped and slammed her palms onto the table for emphasis. Glen looked mildly impressed with her outburst. It was just as well because if he had been closer she would have _slapped_him. Glen only smirked as Ada continued on. "And what are you even talking about-?! Vessel for a soul? How could Gilbert make someone have red eyes? None of this makes any sense!"

"I had heard you were a witch, Ada Vessalius; I thought you of all people would know the power of magic." Glen said dryly. Ada paused at the thought.

"I am only a wise woman, I can perform some spells, yes, but nothing like…nothing like what you're implying!"

"But you must understand that there must be a balance of power in the universe." Glen countered with a bored flick of his wrist. "For every good thing, a bad, for every deed, a consequence. A Misfortune Child threatens that balance with their very existence. Don't you understand- a Misfortune Child may even challenge Glen if they become powerful enough, and that is _not_allowed."

Ada felt the world fall around her in one suffocating deluge of fear. Her breath was stolen and she felt herself drowning in maternal terror. _I can't! I won't give him up after so long!_But how could she hope to fight against those who controlled death and destiny itself? There was no spell, no incantation that could defeat the very origin of the world.

If that strength must exist within her alone, she would find it!

"So. You wish to kill my son? Is that it?" Ada demanded painfully.

"Once upon a time, yes. He would have been punished by being sent to the Abyss, taken out of the very cycle of reincarnation. Unable to ever live again, never a threat again. Now however, now there may be another way." Glen sat forward with his elbows on the table, peering at her with his great glittering eyes. Is this what had hidden for so long among mortals? This unassailable god that brought misfortune to all he came in contact with?

"Will he be allowed to live?" Ada asked softly.

"Yes, in a way at least, but he will be allowed to live out the rest of this lifetime, and all those that may come after." Glen raised his eyebrows at her. "So far he has not been awakened. He may or may not see those golden lights, but you have kept him from us. Baskervilles don't become so until they come into our light. Until they come into contact with us. How old is he now?"

"He will be fifteen in two months."

"Then throw a Coming of Age ceremony for him, here, in the capital. Let him be greeted as a marquess in acknowledgement for his mother's suffering. Then let him meet us. Let him become who he must, and we will make him into what he must be."

"If you acknowledge him as a marquess- you'll make him the target for so many assassinations!" Ada argued.

"So what? He will be our ally, one of us. No harm will ever come to him." Glen sat back and raised his legs onto the arm rest again. Ada sat back, wondering if she could really let her son become a pawn of the Baskervilles.

"Is there no other way to save his life?" She lamented.

Glen gave the answer she already knew, "no."

And even after she heard what must be done, she agreed to the Duke's proposition for he told her one other thing in her maternal agony.

"It was your late husband that allowed for this, for it was he who allowed me to see there may be mercy. He refused to kill his brother. His exchange for his services was one wish, to change the world, so he never existed." Glen glanced up at Ada's horrified look and only smiled at her choking.

"He could have chosen to kill Gilbert instead, for what would it have mattered if the world was going to change anyway? But he chose to save his brother by ending his existence and allowing this world his brother loves, the one where Oz Vessalius exists, to remain."

Glen chuckled wryly, "after something like that! Something so selfless out of such a selfish bastard! Well I thought perhaps even I could change. I've always been different you know, my other lives, their petty squabbles….I never cared about them. I rather like it when they yell at me now!"

Ada didn't quite know what Glen meant but the thought that Vincent had given up his one wish, so this world where she had loved him and Rotem existed could remain, it was enough to overcome her terror and doubt. She had never felt like she could have hoped to understand Vincent but that impulse, to let them all live on, to let them have their own destinies, how could she deny even such a cruel fate? At least they had been allowed this chance!

And that was the strength she must fine, to continue walking down the path her late husband, her beloved, her cleared.

_Rotem, forgive me for what I lead you into. For even if this life is blighted with suffering for you, at least you have the chance to live again!_And that was all she could give her son, who had been born at the end of a salted line and cursed by the Abyss.

But he would never be Misfortune's child ever again.

* * *

At the beginning of spring, Rotem Vessalius, the singular marquess of the Baskerville reign, claimed his title and position in society. The location was an old church at the border of the city, nothing like how the ceremony had been done in her younger days. It was much more a pageant, a chance to strut and pose, a mere formality that meant nothing at all. Nothing but the decayed ritual of an obsolete class.

He knew none of the peers, well-wishers, and hopeful sycophants that came to his celebration. He accepted them all with trained politeness and subtle dignity. He sent his mother certain knowing glances however over the heads of adoring old ladies and circumspect gentlemen and for a second, in his mischief, he looked like Oz. He looked like his father however as he greeted the young ladies in restrained charm and beamed at jealous young and old men.

Ada fanned herself and wondered how many were here for her son's life and how many to save it. Most she knew were curiosity seekers. People looked away from her gaze, quieted their conversations as she approached, and snickered as she walked by. She was a sorceress now, far more powerful in people's minds than she was in truth, but she was content to let it stay that way if men feared a curse for a knife in her son's back. She had allied herself with whom she must and every favor had only been to bring her last drop of her blood to this point. Let them call her "whore" and her son "bastard", she had survived and would take whatever name that was called.

Eventually the crowd parted to reveal the face she had been seeking amongst the oblique crowd of strangers. He looked and did not look how she had expected, no, he looked how she knew he must but she hadn't wished to see. So old, so worn down, so much older than he should be.

But when she looked into his eyes she didn't see unhappiness there, only apprehension, perhaps guilt, but never regret.

"Gilbert." She sighed and laughed softly as she reached to gently tug on his beard. All those women who had once thrown themselves at his feet, they didn't even know him now!

"Ah, Miss Ada, I don't even know how you can stand to look at me," He said softly as she gently tugged him towards an antechamber.

"Please don't say things like that," Ada softly begged as she stood near to him. "It's been three years since…and….ha, is that the old hat I got you?"

She wrinkled her nose at the shapeless lump of fabric on his head. Before he could protest she plucked the homely thing off his hair and tossed it to the floor.

"I like that hat!" Gilbert cried but was stopped from diving after his possession by Ada's strong arm.

"Then I'll buy you a new one! Heavens! I won't let you leave without some coins if things have been so…" Ada swallowed and stepped back. "Have they been?"

"We do not live like nobles but…we're happy, I think." Gilbert smiled; the first time Ada had seen him do so in almost twenty years. She couldn't help but feel soothed by that gentle warmth, so like when she had been a young girl.

"I'm so glad! I have never stopped; I have never stopped thinking about my big brother!" Ada was surprised by the tears in her eyes and then ashamed. But she found she could not stop once she had started. They flowed as freely as her emotions.

"I still hope, Gilbert, even after everything that's happened! That one day we'll all get to be together again!"

"Miss Ada, Miss Ada," He gently soothed putting a hand on her shoulder as she softly wept. "Ah…but even now….what we must do…."

"Even after this," she whispered and let her head rest against his chest. "I feel like this was not a mistake. It's only a little bit more blood, a little bit more."

"Mother?" Rotem had come looking for her. Ada stiffened as she heard him come around the corner and give a small hiss at the sight that greeted him, his mother in the embrace of his father's murderer.

"Rotem!" But he was no longer even looking at her. His dark red eyes were squarely on the man with her. Three years was no great amount of time, even for a child.

"You _dare_come here?" He demanded through clenched teeth. "Did you think I would not know you? You! Who killed my own father?"

"Please wait," Ada pleaded as she tried to stop Rotem from drawing his sword. Even a dress sword was sharp and the boy had already developed an affinity for the weapon. "I called him here!"

"What, why?" Rotem backed up a step but it was only a step. He never looked away from the man who refused to look at _him_.

"Because he is…oh, Rotem, I should have told you this so long ago!" Ada cried out in disgust at her own cowardice. Rotem reached for her shoulders.

"Mother, I know who he is! He shouldn't be here! He should not even be allowed to look at you, that scum!"

"No, he's-!" Ada tried to intervene but Gilbert put his own head on the chopping block.

"He's right!" he interrupted them both. He stepped forward as they both stared at him. For perhaps the first time he looked directly into his son's eyes.

"I shouldn't be here." Gilbert raised his head and scowled down at Rotem, still a head shorter than his sire. "And if you're still so thirsty for vengeance—today you become a man. Don't spill my blood in front of your mother but if you would find me later—"

He pushed past the boy who still clung to his mother even as he sneered at the older man. "Follow the golden lights."

Ada felt Rotem begin to tremble even as he kept his eyes on Gilbert until he had turned the corner. Once his tormentor was out of sight however he released her with a loud gasp, apparently struggling to keep upright. He covered his cursed eyes with his hands.

"How did he…?" He cried softly. Ada looked away in pain. _So he really is…_Just like Vincent. And Gilbert too.

"Because he is your father." Rotem startled at the sound of her voice, apparently he had forgotten her presence her in his distress.

"Huh? Vincent, his brother….was my father," Rotem tried to correct her but Ada could only shake her head.

"No, he was my husband, your uncle by blood, perhaps your father in your heart…but not by blood." Ada closed her eyes to confess her great shame. "I lay with Gilbert only once, but it was that time you were conceived. Your father forgave us and raised you, because I requested it. Because he loved me and his brother, and you, I think, in time."

Rotem scoffed as if she had just told him a disgusting fairy tale. He curled his lips in an expression of distaste, or just pain. He closed his eyes and grimaced as if he had just swallowed something very bitter.

"No, I won't accept it." Was all he said and before Ada could reach for him he turned away. He walked with long and quick strides to where the priest was preparing to say the rite; he obviously had no intention of discussing the revelation further. Ada remained in the back of the sanctuary, where she could still watch the ceremony but no one could see her heart breaking.

_Before it happened I just wanted you two to…_Her tears were ignored as nothing more than those of a proud mother. Through her blurry vision she saw her son ascend the steps of the sanctuary to touch a broken clock. Nothing happened, nothing changed, it was just another meaningless gesture for the masses. If anything had changed about her son it was his eyes, they held only a cutting sharpness, the sort of cruelly determined eyes Vincent had borne in his final days.

Rotem had already made his choice then; he would follow those golden lights, as Duke Baskerville had predicted.

A girl Ada had not noticed before dropped the cloak onto Rotem's shoulders at the conclusion of the ceremony. Her skin was the color of mahogany and her dark hair was tied back into a great puff around the nape of her neck. She was a graceful, pear-shaped, little thing, rather like a graceful top. When she turned however she possessed a startling pair of light pink eyes. She smiled slyly at Ada, as if she knew her. The mother quickly looked away from that disquieting gaze and she spotted another flash of pink in the crowd and another woman who flitted through masses like a well sharpened knife.

Her son was well protected.

Yet Ada could not find any comfort even when Rotem came to kiss her cheek and softly said "I'm sorry." For he was not regretful about what he was going to do, he was only regretful he had not comforted her after announcing his decision. Children are so naive, as if he could have hoped to soothe her with murderous intentions.

_My son, my little boy, but at least even if you suffer, one day you'll get another chance!_ All Ada could do was pray for his soul as he embraced her one last time.


	3. Rosenrot oh Rosenrot

_Rose-red, oh rose-red_

* * *

One thing Rotem had always known about himself was that his name was strange. No one else had a name quite like it, knicked from some far off land like a souvenir. He had looked up its meaning when he had still been quite young, as soon as he could properly read really. He come to learn it meant "knot", and when he asked his mother which of his parents had named him he became more befuddled when she answered it had been his father to call him so.

It was only now, fifteen and walking down a path that existed only in his mind did he begin to realize his father, yes, _father_, for he would have no other, had perhaps been having a bit of a laugh at him.

_Mother that person is so disgusting! How could you-!_ And his father had _known_ about it! It was like a re-play of the instant a child becomes aware his parents too are sexual beings. It was a feeling of disquiet and repulsion that knowledge _we are alike and one day I will become like you_, it made his skin crawl and his hair stand on end. _That_was how he came to be?!

Despite his disgust however Rotem had reassured himself that ultimately it didn't matter. It had always been just him and mother, and they had gotten on just fine. He could have whatever father he wished, and blood was nothing more than water in the veins. _I am not like you! And I will show everyone!_

But he had known about the lights! That bastard! How had he-?!

They had first appeared about a month ago, as if heralding some arrival. They had flickered across his vision with the last snow fall of the season, mixing with the shimmering white of the muted landscape in a dazzling display he had first taken as an embodiment of hope. It was that very day he learned he was to be proclaimed a marquess and given a true title in society. That golden shower of lights had seemed to be a divine blessing, given by the blue winged angel herself.

Yet caution had held his tongue from sharing his vision, for though he was barely an adult, Rotem knew how this country was run. If he was to be the second highest titled noble in the land and his family set above all others, it was only because he had been given favor by the death gods themselves. Why? A bastard no one had ever cared about? The son of a witch and a traitor? He knew his father had once served that duke, but had he been so near to that man's heart he would give his son such an unprecedented honor?

No, not honor, a debt, and one he would surely pay for with blood. Rotem knew of his mother's clandestine meetings with petitioners from that displaced upper class. He could recall being hidden in the basement as unnamed armies had passed through-out his childhood and the fear in his mother's grip on him. He had heard the rumors and gossip of the anxious peasantry who only wished to farm their lands in peace, but looked on their betters with bitterness and disgust. Into this churning tide he had been tossed and he had no idea if he was meant to sink or swim.

He had an idea he was just a figurehead, a stand-in for the unapproachable, unknowable, and unseen duke; a straw man for assassins to throw their knives at, for bribed cooks to poison his soup, and to be set aflame by the angry crowds. There was no way he would be allowed to become powerful enough to challenge the Baskerville family, and he feared what measures they make take to keep him docile. This journey may be his last and his only chance to perhaps understand _why_he was.

As fate had come in the form of the bedraggled and pathetic Gilbert Nightray the lights had transformed from blessings to ill omens. He was being prompted to chase after what he hated, for only what he loathed could let him understand who he was. They dazzled his sight and beckoned him to walk a path that was his alone, seen only by him, known only by him. They had heralded not a bounty of good fortune but only the very embodiment of misfortune, his true father.

Rotem could at least say the Baskervilles wanted him alive as he had now walked for two days with no attack. He may have been dressed like a peasant with a rough cloak and mud stained boots, but no one else save the young marquess had wine red eyes. People did stare at him, avoided him, but none raised a hand to him, and that was fine. He could become the public face of the Baskerville regime if they allowed him to settle this one last debt. He would never raise a hand to them and would happily be their puppet if they stayed out of his personal affairs.

On the third day he became aware the city he was approaching with its grime and dilapidated buildings that gave it the appearance of a great sleeping skeleton on the horizon was Sablier. He paused as he knew this was Baskerville territory and not even the most outraged noble dared to approach it. All that came here were petitioners and sycophants licking at the toes of the Great Duke. Gilbert Nightray was an outcast, that much Rotem knew, had he really come to the Baskervilles to seek protection against his vengeful blood?

He snorted, and he had hoped the old man would honorably meet him. He had never had any intention of killing him as coldly as Nightray had his own younger brother. Rotem had never killed anyone, not even an animal, in all his fifteen years of life. Nevertheless he was skilled with the sword and believed in honor however it had been rotted for his class over the last fifteen years.

Yet there was a deep repulsion in the idea of becoming a murderer. Rotem had seen firsthand the sort of grief that comes from sudden, violent death. He may have hated him, but Nightray surely had someone who loved him, for a loveless man has no need for sacrifice. In a place he didn't care to reach, but felt all the same, Rotem knew his mother had loved _both_brothers. It was her voice that came back to him again and again.

_"It's such a waste, to lay men in graves."_

They had been standing in a cemetery, when he had only been about knee high and she had been hired to place a charm in the grave of the local baron's son. He had been assassinated by an unknown person; his blood had perhaps as vibrantly draped him as the cloak of the person who had murdered him. With a frown Ada had said the incantation as her son became first aware of the fragility of life.

Would it be a waste to kill a kin-slayer and traitor? Rotem didn't know. He didn't even know if he had cared about the victim so much. All he could remember was his mother's tears, and the foreboding to be further cause of them. He let out a great sigh as he walked onto street whose dust was surely clotted with the blood of thousands.

The ball was in Nightray's court. He had led him to the Baskervilles and Rotem felt there must be cause. He didn't think it could be assassination at so early a juncture, but he could be wrong. All he could do was trust these lights that seemed to be beckoning him to his final destiny, and his mother, who had let him go with no more than a pack and a smile when he had announced his decision.

He followed the lights to the very door of the massive stronghold that dominated the center of the city. It was a stone leviathan with many arms, a great octopus that reached with its grasping tentacles in all directions, seeking out all those who broke the law; holding within its many arms the very balance of the universe. The lights didn't abate as the gate was opened to him with a mighty groan and an almost pained lowering of the drawbridge after he had given his full name.

"I am the Marquess, Rotem Vessalius."

Two figures in red cloaks greeted him, a man and a woman by their shapes, her tall, him short. They said nothing to him but guided him past a gaping main hall and a garden burgeoning in blooms. The lights continued to drift in and out of his vision, a shimmering flurry atop the vibrant blossoms. He laid a hand over his heart, how strange that in the company of death gods he felt strangely at peace. As if he had come home at last and the wretched world outside had been nothing but a bad dream.

He was brought into a small sitting room where a boy not much older than him lounged with a book in hand, shoes on the sofa. Rotem paused at the sight; he was the only person here besides him not dressed in a red cloak. He was dressed in a bedraggled shirt and trousers, his hair mussed, and in his indolent hand was a penny dreadful, the sort of book his mother would scold him about reading. When he glanced above the pages however Rotem tensed at the look in his great dark eyes, it was like they could devour a person with a glance.

Another cloaked figure suddenly brushed past Rotem and his apparent guards. It was a young girl by her mincing step though he could see no further trace of her in the folds of her great scarlet cloak. There was a clutch of pink roses however at her chin as she giggled and excitedly leaned down to whisper in the boy's ear. He nodded and laid the book down.

"So. You are the marquess," He identified as the girl moved behind the sofa and the boy dropped his cheek into his hand. "I am Duke Glen Baskerville. You have come to us at last."

"You are-?!" _Such a young boy?!_Was it possible he was really not any older than himself?! Rotem quickly shut his mouth as the duke raised an eyebrow at him.

"I am." He said crisply as he raised the book back up. "And _you_are just like your mother."

"You know her?" Rotem asked in surprise.

"For many years." He looked over the pages of the book towards some distant point only he could see. He returned to his reading however as he continued on. "And your father too."

"Please, sir, I am looking for a man. He told me if I followed the golden lights I would find him." The duke only continued on his reading and Rotem dared to step forward, his hands folded in pleading. "Is Gilbert Nightray here?"

"He is, but you won't be meeting him until morning." The duke sent him a dark glance over his pages. "For now…"

He reached up and removed the hood of the girl standing behind him. Rose colored eyes greeted him as the girl from the ceremony beamed at him. Rotem stepped back; he had thought she had been some young nun or someone's daughter-!

"This is Rosalind, my manservant and heir. She has taken quite a liking to _you_however so she can escort you to dinner." The duke informed him.

"Sir, will I really see Gilbert Nightray in the morning?" Rotem pleaded as the girl swooped to collect him.

"I promise you will." The duke waved him off. He never looked away from his page as the audience ended and the apparent Rosalind dragged Rotem from the room.

* * *

The Baskerville heiress was just as unsuited for nobility as the marquess was. Though she obviously had the breeding with her fine stance, graceful posture, and manicured speech, the ultimate result of a cloistered life of nannies and governesses, she had a certain bold streak in her that was still quite unbecoming of a lady. Her found he didn't mind this trait however as he watched her play a game with her servants he often did whenever he dropped golden marbles into grain or needles into haystacks. She carelessly tossed her mother of pearl combs out the window and then grandly ordered the two guards to go and fetch it. She laughed as they combed through high rose bushes to find them and took the opportunity to speak to Rotem totally alone.

"Ah you have such pretty eyes." She ran a smooth pink nail beneath one and only smiled as Rotem flinched away from the touch. "Such a pity!"

"What is?" Rotem asked and she merely gave him a coy look. He straightened up and tried to match her.

"Your eyes are also a very unique color. Does it run in your family?"

"Oh yes, but rarely. My great-grandmother was the last one to have them, and she also had this name."

"Like the fresh blooms I saw in the garden," Rotem gently touched her cheek but quickly dropped his hand once he noticed the dirt beneath his finger nails.

She giggled when he flinched as she came close again. "Are you afraid of me?"

"No, I am just….apprehensive." Rotem tried to explain, not wanting her to think he couldn't play the game. "I'm sorry, it is making me anxious."

"About meeting your father?" Rosalind asked.

"How did you know-?!" Rotem sputtered. Rosalind raised her chin.

"I know everything; I must for I am the heir. Only for now am I a servant, one day I will inherit the title."

"But you are a woman!" Rotem argued.

"Glen has been a woman before," Rosalind shrugged. She smiled as Rotem deflated at the notion. She moved close to him again, to lay her mahogany hand on his arm. This time he didn't flinch away from her. "And soon I will be the duchess. We will have to work together, you and I, I hope you will stay with us for a while."

"I fear I intend to leave as soon as I take care of my business," Rotem softly informed her. He wasn't sure if he felt relieved or not he did apparently have some part in the greater plan. Rosalind only smiled at the news and the sadness around her eyes didn't seem to be inspired by the notion of his departure, it was almost a look of pity, if it hadn't been underlined by a confident quirk of her lip. Rotem quickly stepped back as dinner was announced.

It was as lavish as all his meals had been since he had come into his title and he was beginning to loathe how rich noble food was. It had led him to pick at his meals in a way he never had with the rustic fare he had been raised on. He tried to joke with Rosalind about his sensitive stomach but the girl was becoming more and more quiet and depressed. In only an hour she went from laughing and fanciful nymph to a sober and frowning waif. Rotem couldn't comprehend it; he had never met someone with such mercurial moods before.

"Did I say something?" he lowly asked over his soup. He elaborated at her questioning look. "To upset you?"

"It's only what you don't know, Lord Rotem." Rosalind sighed and turned away from him.

"I do know you haven't touched your soup at all!" Rotem tried again. "Come now why are you so…"

Darkness clotted onto the edges of his vision like sludge. The golden lights were dragged under its fearsome wave as his stomach hit the floor. He tried to stand, tried to say something, but he was choked by a great rushing blackness that made his limbs heavy and stole his breath. He had the sensation of falling, falling, forever, with no end.

There was only darkness all around, cavernous and devouring, the golden lights of paradise only a distant memory within the reaches of hell.

* * *

When he awoke it was in agony and darkness.

And there would only be darkness forever more.

The pain was only the first thing he was aware of because it was so ardent. His skull was aflame as his nerves screamed at being severed. Rotem instinctively rubbed his eyes and though he could feel his eyelids, he could feel no gelatinous mass beneath. Nothing rolled beneath his palms but a rough line that almost felt like stitches.

He quickly sat up, he was awake wasn't he? There was no way he could feel this much pain and not be awake! But why couldn't he see? Why wouldn't his eyes open? Oh god why couldn't he see-?!

In a panic he stood with some idea of somehow waking himself up. He had to be dreaming! Why couldn't he see otherwise?! Damn this pain! He _must_be dreaming! For if he was not he was blind! Oh god he had gone blind!

He tried to run, tried to flee beyond the nightmare's grip. He only ran into a pair of arms however that held him still. A smell like smoke assaulted his nose and he tried to fight out of the grip of whatever monster his subconscious had conjured.

"Rotem! Calm down! Calm down!" A voice ordered him. A voice so like…

"Father?" he asked hopefully, lost in the confusion between reality and terror. The man made a low sound of regret. Rotem reached for the other arm and found only a lifeless stump. No, this was _not_his father, he realized. This was-!

"Gilbert Nightray." He seethed. He pushed the man back and like before he didn't even resist the onslaught. "What has happened?! Why can't I see?! What has happened to me?!"

"Sit down!" Nightray tried to push him back, onto a bed or sofa, Rotem couldn't even know. But he refused and only pushed back on the man in a fury. He couldn't see where his fists where but he would-! He would-! He would get _answers_!

"Stop it!" Nightray snapped trying to grasp Rotem's flying fists. That was fine he could _kick_too!

"What happened to me?! Damn it, you cursed pathetic bastard! _Tell_me!" Rotem screamed now only throwing a fruitless tantrum as he couldn't hope to beat off the older man without sight and his skull burning with incandescent pain.

"I put out your eyes last night!" The truth came in a scream to match one of Rotem's passionate fury. Nightray let him go leaving Rotem to collapse against some soft surface; listening in shock to the sound of the man he hated most shuffle back in abject horror.

"I blinded you." Nightray whispered with tears in his voice as ones began to flow down Rotem's face. He felt the rough line across his eyelids and knew then they could only be stitches, and ones that didn't prevent him from weeping. Had that been mercy or just a dammed oversight?! Where Nightray wept in shame Rotem wept in rage.

"You _coward_, you damned despicable coward! All so I wouldn't kill you-?!" Rotem hissed.

"No!" Nightray cried with his voice as raw as the eyeless boy's. "It was the only way! What you are Rotem! With those sorts of eyes you could find the Core of the Abyss! You are what Vincent was, and you could do what he attempted to do. You could destroy the entire world!"

He gasped and fell to his knees before Rotem. "But now! But now! You won't have to be banished to the Abyss, taken out of the cycle of reincarnation. Without those eyes you'll never be able to find the Core. You're not a threat anymore!"

"Stay away from me!" Rotem shrieked. His slap only landed because its target was in such close proximity. It shattered the air and Nightray recoiled in its wake.

"I don't want to hear your lies!"

"They are not lies! Damn it, why do you think _you_of all people were chosen to be the marquess? Because you are one of them, because I was once. Because I am your father. And you are misfortune's child." Rotem felt Nightray move back, a subtle stirring of the air that almost felt like a blast against his agonized face.

"Because you were my mistake I had to take care of. Before you would have only been killed but now….because of my brother….he chose to not change this world. Now a Misfortune Child…"

"Now, I can live as the crippled pawn of your damned _family_." Rotem finished bitterly.

"They are not my family!"

"Yet you allowed them to do this to me! To use me! All my life I thought I could ignore blood, that it didn't matter who my father was! But now! Now!" Rotem stood up and turned away.

"I see it's a noose we all have to hang from." Nightray said nothing as Rotem felt his stitches and flinched as he touched the irritated skin around them. Rotem gave a sigh of disgust at the silence. _This idiot, he never has anything to say-!_

"But I can chose _when_I'm going to hang at least." Rotem finished his thought. He extended his hand and after some searching found the door. He heard Nightray stand up behind him.

"You, do you still want to kill me?" He asked lowly. Rotem paused at the thought and found even in this horrific moment when he knew he would forever walk in darkness, blinded by the hands of his own father, he knew he had never really intended to kill anyone. Perhaps in his guilt Nightray would have allowed him to fumble with a dagger and murder him, but Rotem would never lower himself to such a dishonorable thing. It was not pride, honor, or duty that stayed his hand however, it was only love.

In his mother's arms he had known only gentle, nurturing love. Love that protects, strengthens, and nourishes. The sort of love a child flourishes on. From his father however he had learned love's cruelty. Its viciousness and agony, if he had not loved him he would have simply taken the coward's way out and would have let him die. His father had loved him enough to take on the sin of this terrible act and let its guilt burden him for the rest of his life. This was the sort of world Vincent Baskerville had allowed to remain, one where even if they suffered every day of their lives, they could be reborn. A terrible and wonderful world, full of love.

"No, I never desired it." Rotem confessed as he lowered his throbbing forehead to the cool grains of the door. "All I wished for was to know what I am. And I am your son. That is all."

He left Nightray behind, for that man never did have anything to say, and perhaps he didn't need to say anything further.

Through the darkness he found Rosalind. She opened her arms and engulfed him in love. In time he did recuperate in her care. He left with two things from the Baskerville estate, her promise, and a contract to a Chain whose eyes also never opened. The Dormouse. It knew him by the smell of his blood and his vengeful determination.

And only his Chain knew that even with his eyes put out Rotem could still see the golden lights. They flickered in an out of the darkness as messengers of peace and hope. He ignored however what pulsed beyond them and only thought of the young woman who would one day guard their origin.

For in time he came to love her, in adoration of her charity, the expanse of her love, in fear of her wrath, and the charm of her spirit. It was what had to be enough for us all, simply the love of those who would love us. Perhaps his foster father had found it in his last terrible moments, or continued to chase after its ghost even after death. Those remained however could live on, and would live on, having found all that they needed.

And why should he try to change such a world?

* * *

**A/N- ** If enough interest is expressed, I may write another installment set in this universe. As I now have some more ideas such as Sharon Rainsworth as resistance fighter in the countryside and an actual depiction of the brewing civil war finally breaking out. But anyway, yes, please leave feed-back if you have it.


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